How many times did you attempt to leave your abusive relationship?

THERE are many places, avenues, and services offering guidance for leaving abusive relationships, and one bit of advice is constant — leave at the first sign of abuse because it will only get worse. But statistics show that women often don’t, and can’t leave immediately due to various reasons that are well documented in literature.

But the statistics also show that women who are harmed by their partners aren’t usually hurt in one-off events — it’s often a crescendo that culminates, usually, in the woman being seriously hurt.

“The fact is, it’s difficult to realistically tell a woman who has invested her time, effort, and life in a man and a relationship that she must leave,” family counsellor David Anderson said.

“She has to think about the children, the pets, the finances, the house, whether it makes sense, where she will go, and indeed, whether she will face the same issues once she goes out into the world,” he said. “So, to be fair, it’s not as simple as saying leave, or chastising her for being silly not to, when you don’t know what’s keeping her there.”

For housewife SP, she waited 20 years, until her last child was in sixth form, to leave the man who would, like clockwork, come home drunk every Friday and batter her in front of her kids.

“I didn’t have a choice then,” she says now. “He was the provider — I had given up my career to raise the children — I had nowhere to go.”

She said one time, when things got especially bad, she had reached out to her parents for help, but they had implored her to work it out.

“It was the same with my pastor,” she said. “We got counselling and everything, and he encouraged me not to break the bonds of marriage over my husband’s ‘small sins’.”

She did however start making her plans when her youngest entered high school, though by that time her husband’s health was fading and the physical abuse had stopped.

“But it didn’t matter to me that he now needed my help and my support. I had planned to be free, and got my freedom on 2018, when my daughter finished fifth form. It was glorious.”

How many times does a woman attempt to leave an abusive relationship prior to successfully leaving?

Anderson says, for some of the stories he’s personally witnessed, it can be in the dozens.

“Most of them do end up eventually leaving,” he said. “Although for some, it’s too late.”

For the women below, it took try after try, but eventually they were able to leave and never look back.

Marjorie, 36, divorced:

There was verbal and physical abuse throughout the marriage — not really bad physical abuse, just a few slaps here and there. The verbal abuse was the worst, he belittled me so badly that, even after I moved out, it took years for me to date again. I seriously tried to leave three times — one of the times I actually left for a week, but then returned. It was always the same reason — my son needed his father. Eventually I read something that said that an absent father is better than a bad father, and that encouraged me to finally cut the cord and leave for good.

Antoinette, 46, separated:

I couldn’t leave before, even though I desperately wanted to — the funds were just not there, and at my big age, I couldn’t get a job that could support my kids. But I always wanted to leave because he was a nasty man who preyed on young girls. I applied for my visa, got it, and went to visit my sister, and that, as they say, opened my eyes to what my life could be. I would spend months at a time with her, then return, and would be disgusted each time. In 2020 I left and haven’t gone back, because I met someone who values me.

Chris-Ann, 30, married:

I left him just a few months ago. I was depending on him before, but got some online links during COVID and started making ‘mad’ money while being able to stay home with my kids. I feel independent now, and don’t have to deal with him and his women, and him putting his hands on me when I’d ask about them. He doesn’t miss me because he has another woman living at the house now, and I’m just surprised I waited so long and put up with so much disrespect.

Stephanie, 28, separated:

I left a year ago — been trying for years and just never got around to it. I blamed myself for making him angry, and would just take the licks. But one time he joked about women “deserving” what they got, when we were watching news about a murder-suicide, and I realised how sick he was. He’d also do things like watch me, sign into my messages, etc, that was cute initially, but got obsessive afterwards. I moved back to the country and just started over without him knowing where I am.